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Post by Shoshanna on Dec 17, 2016 17:02:46 GMT -5
She rescued an abused albino raccoon from dire conditions. Now she can’t stop cuddling with her
December 13, 2016 Maxine Baird has raised around 200 raccoons in her lifetime. As the founder of A New Hope, an animal sanctuary in Georgia, she believes all animals deserve a life free from cruelty and exploitation. When the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) called her about taking in a captive raccoon, it was business as usual. Of course, she would help, even after they warned her the raccoon was dangerously aggressive due to years of abuse. In an interview with The Dodo, Baird explained it was only supposed to be a temporary placement. “We only have one raccoon enclosure [at A New Hope], which has another raccoon in it. But since she was described as so aggressive, I assumed that they probably wouldn’t get along, so we were just going to hold her for a couple of days.” For legal reasons, DNR couldn’t tell her where they’d found the raccoon, but they mentioned the raccoon had been locked up in a suspended wire cage for most of her life. A raccoon can live up to twenty years in captivity, but in the wild, they typically have a life expectancy of only two to three years. The raccoon Baird was about to take in was already about four years old. She also also an albino with white fur and pink ears, and according to the DNR, the former owner may have wanted to use her for taxidermy. Full story with lots of pictures at link.
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